Donizetti Opera, an international festival dedicated to the Bergamasque composer, reaches the milestone in 2024 of tenth edition that will run from November 14 to December 1, 2024. It will be the last one signed by artistic director Francesco Micheli who has led it since its founding in 2015. “I proudly greet my city and Teatro Donizetti,” Francesco Micheli said during today’s press conference, “knowing that I leave as a legacy a Festival that in two lustrums has become an international reference point. Four “Abbiati Awards” from the National Association of Music Critics, Best European Festival in 2019 according to German critics for the monthly magazine “Oper!” and many other satisfactions that I have experienced with many of you. Thanks to our work today Gaetano lives and struggles with us from Bergamo in the world.” “For Bergamo it has been ten years of change,” comments Culture Councillor Sergio Gandi, “lived with the usual spirit of initiative that distinguishes the city. The Donizetti Theater has played a very important role beyond these walls-which we strongly wanted to rebuild and modernize-and today the city’s awareness with respect to the legacy handed down to us by Gaetano Donizetti is no longer a matter for melomaniacs or a few connoisseurs but is an integral part of our identity, thanks to the work of the festival and a long journey that culminated in Bergamo-Brescia being the Italian capital of culture. For this musical phenomenon, which has seen in Francesco Micheli its most exposed standard bearer, credit must also be given to the administration that has supported its initiatives and to the many sponsors and private partners that have flanked it. The relationship between what we now affectionately call Gaetano and the city cannot go backwards and must always be at the center of our cultural policies.” “To accompany a “revolution” such as the one we have seen in these ten years,” stressed Donizetti Theatre Foundation President Giorgio Berta, “required a solid organizational structure that had grown over the years, such as that of the Donizetti Theatre Foundation, which I have chaired since 2016. The challenges posed to us by Francesco Micheli in recent years, as well as that of restructuring and pandemic, have been considerable. However, we have faced them, respecting time and costs both in the happiest moments of performance, such as the rediscovery of the Ange de Nisida, and when facing moments of uncertainty and health and social emergency. Years in which we did not give up, but invented or identified new tools and new methods of audience engagement, such as WebTV in 2020 with 11 thousand viewers. Donizetti Opera, in the vision of Francesco Micheli and the growing commitment of all the Foundation’s workers, has succeeded in making all Bergamasks, starting with young people, understand the value of the composer Donizetti and the universal message of his theater. We are grateful to Francesco also because he leaves us a further gift: the programming set for the next two years, with an international co-production together with the Teatro Real in Madrid that will see Micheli directing “Caterina Cornaro” and David McVicar directing “Maria Stuarda.””
